Samsung Electronics promotes that all its products are collected and recycled at the end of their lifecycle, so that it can contribute to reserving clean environment by reusing resources. The company has established recycling infrastructure in Korea. It also finances for the collection and recycling of its products in many other countries. Samsung Electronics continuously work to increase the amount of recyclable products. Below are the amounts that Samsung Electronics recycled across all its product groups in Korea and Japan from 2004, in Europe from 2005, and in the United States from 2006.
Samsung WEEE recycled amount by region
Recycling Rate
In Korea, the recycling rates below for the year 2010 are based on the average life-span for TVs, PCs, and mobile phones. For example, taking the average life-span of a TV as 10 years, the recycling rate for 2010 is the weight of TVs recycled in 2010 as a percentage of the weight of TVs sold in 2000.
Recycling rates for 2010 in Korea:
- TVs - 42 % (based on an average life-span of 10 years, 2000)
- Computers - 16 % (based on an average life-span of 7 years, 2003)
- Mobile phones - 27 % (based on an average life-span of 2 years, 2008)
Use of Recycled Plastic
In 2010, Samsung Electronics’ use of post-consumer recycled plastics across all products was approximately 0.55%, and has increased to 2.37% by June, 2011 which represents an upward trend from 0.4% during the year 2009. The company is investing in research to ensure a high standard quality of post-consumer recycled plastics in order to expand its use across the major product categories.
The components made of post-consumer material (PCM) are used in eco-friendly mobile phones and home appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines.
The below is an example of post-consumer recycled plastic contents (%) compared to total plastics in products. The contents in products vary, since the contents of PCM in components are different by models.
- Mobile phone: Blue Earth (37.2%), Rant2 (29.4%), Universe (69.2%), Rant3 (49.7%), XTM2 (18.5%)
- Home appliance: Refrigerator RSH5UBMH1/XEU (5.3%), Washing Machine WA-GA139WA (10%)
